Electrosurgery has been performed since the end of the nineteenth century and involves the use of high frequency current conducted to a electrocauterizing tip of an active electrode which in turn generates the heat necessary to cut and coagulate contacted tissue. Because of the development over the years of a multitude of new surgical procedures, many different electrosurgical devices have been developed with a wide variety of unique features.
Recently, there has been, and continues to be, advancement in the development of laparoscopic surgical techniques. These newly developing procedures, using remote video technology, enable the surgeon to perform an operation through a limited number of small incisions in an inflated abdomen eliminating the need for a much larger and more traumatizing abdominal incision. This has created a need for a new multifunctional electrosurgical for device which, until now, there has been no need. Detailed observations of these new surgical techniques have been made in order to determine the design features a device used in these types of operations must have. The results of this work are detailed in the objects of the invention.